Shopping Experience

For this assignment I went to Dillard’s and Target. At each store I looked at a woman’s dress, a woman’s swimsuit, and a man’s board short. While looking for the comparison of price and quality, visiting these places did demonstrate that price doesn’t mean quality, but quality usually does come at a price.

The dress I examined at Dillard’s was an Elza J’s designer dress. It was fully lined, had an exterior lining and a lace with embroidery overlay. It looked ornate but then I saw the serging at the side seam in the hem. The lace and the upper lining had been serged together. I then examined more parts and saw that the lining wasn’t fully favored to the inside in the armscye, which is poor quality for a sleeveless dress. While this dress should still be more expensive than the poorer quality clothes because of the materials and design, it is not worth the full $198. To me, this dress is clearly overpriced, especially since I found a high quality blue and gold dress that was sewn more professionally for a cheaper price a few racks over.

The dress at Target was one of their newer designer dresses (Who What Wear) and it was honestly already falling apart. This dress had a lining and an outer shell, both made of sheer fabrics. The dart on the lining was already falling apart. The elastic that made gathers at the waist was exposed and the buttons were very clearly plastic. This dress was $35, which I would still consider over priced as the dress was already falling apart.

Beach House swimsuit at Dillard's

The woman’s swimsuit I examined at Dillard’s was a Beach House brand, navy blue stripes (matched in CF seam) with a short skirt. It had a semi-welt pocket with zipper and seams were tacked down even though they were between the skirt and the swimsuit. The hem was even stabilized. As swimwear was being marked down, the current price is $62. With the thought behind the design and the immaculate execution, this dress is fair value/ almost bargain as I would probably have considered it fair value at its full price of $104.

The Merona swimsuit at Target was a striped swimsuit with a skirt, no pockets. The hem was not stabilized and the waist seam on the inside of the swimsuit was not tacked down. At $35 the swimsuit is at a fair value for the quality.

The Billabong board short at Dillard’s was made with 43% recycled polyester and 51% cotton. The seams were all true flat-felled seams, it had full front pockets and a welt pocket in the back with a zipper and a bungee cord to attach your keys to. The fabric did look worn, but my guess is that was the desired look. This board short was of quality construction so I would consider $55 as a fair value for this short.

Target’s Mossimo man’s board short tried to lure in a customer with a label saying that the label was made from 100% recycled material (if you did not read closely you might not have realized that it said label instead of fabric). This board short had a false flat-felled seam made by putting a small piece of fabric over a serged seam that was tacked down. This short did not have Velcro in the fly like the Billabong short did. It also only had one pocket. At $25 I have a hard time deciding whether or not it is fair value because of all the interesting cheats, but I will have to go with fair value because I wouldn’t know where else to put it and $25 is a low enough price for it.

Sorry I did not take pictures of each of the clothing items. In hindsight while writing this summary I realize that pictures would have made this post a lot better. Remember, price does not equal quality. 

And sorry for the horrible handwriting.